CHOICE, AN ECHO

Pro Choice: How Democrats can make vouchers their secret weapon. (Siobhan Gorman, September 2003, Washington Monthly)

In early February, President Bush dropped a bombshell on the education world: A $75 million proposal for a multi-city voucher program, and Washington, D.C., would pioneer it. "My initial reaction was, 'No,' "says District Mayor Anthony Williams, a center-leaning Democrat. "But I started thinking: Why am I against this?" In his city, around 70 percent of fourth graders can¹t read or work math problems at grade level. And eighth graders are just as badly off. "I couldn't think of a lot of reasons why I was against it in D.C.," he recalled. With a school system in dire condition and rising demand for change, "you have got to have a compelling reason why you shouldn¹t try something new." So, he came out in support of the $15 million program that would give a $7,500 voucher to about 2000 poor D.C. children.

Williams is facing a problem with which nearly every Democratic urban mayor across the country struggles. Constituents are screaming for educational alternatives, and most of the options on the table have been exhausted, except, it seems, for one: vouchers. The Democratic Party has long opposed vouchers, more on political than policy grounds, but Williams¹s choice should sound a very loud alarm as the Democrats head into Election 2004. Democrats are on the verge of losing the rhetorical battle in the politics of hope. Parents like Tracy Tucker of Washington, D.C., aren't supporting vouchers out of ideology but pragmatism; vouchers represent the hope for a better life for her two children. "I received a Pell Grant when I was in college,"says Tucker, a black single mom who works part-time and makes about $25,000 a year. "I really see this as an extension of those programs to uplift children at an earlier age. Right now, I¹m looking at the school system and what it¹s doing--it¹s like sending your child to prison."

Declared dead two years ago when Bush dropped a voucher component of his education reform bill to win its passage, vouchers are in resurgence. A year ago, the Supreme Court ruled that vouchers for private and religious schools do not violate the First Amendment. That eliminated a major hurdle for voucher advocates. Soon after, the Colorado Legislature passed a voucher proposal that goes into effect this month. Florida now has three voucher-type programs, and the decade-old Milwaukee voucher experiment is expanding.

Federal pilot programs like the one proposed for Washington, which Congress will take up as part of the budget battles this fall, offer a new route for voucher advocates. And discerning observers of the political scene can see the outlines of a key component of Bush's reelection strategy. [...]

Indeed, the No Child Left Behind Act is quietly building up grassroots support for vouchers. In addition to tests, the law requires states to designate which schools aren¹t performing well now, and incrementally give them a kick in the pants. Those schools that can¹t do better eventually get shut down, and the students who attend them are sent to other public schools. But as it happens, there aren¹t nearly enough slots in well-performing schools to accommodate all the students who are likely to be looking for a new classroom sometime in the next few years. As school districts look around for places to put their students, they may find that private and parochial schools are among the few alternatives. Says Nina Rees, the deputy undersecretary of education who is responsible for the D.C. voucher initiative, "you have in effect created a constituency that could conceivably ask for private choice."

She nearly figures out that No Child Left Behind is a school choice program in all but name. After that the essay tails off though into a proposal that Democrats embrace vouchers with some slight cosmetic changes in order to make their surrender palatable. Republicans notoriously made themselves the permanent minority party by just such a strategy, which comes across to any but the most detail-oriented wonk as petty sniping on an issue where you've admitted that your opponent was right and you wrong. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 2, 2003 3:01 PM